Cersei's "plan" and fake drama about Jon

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So, if Cersei had already planned with Euron that he was going to pretend to retreat home, and she was going to pretend to accept the truce but then stab Dany and Jon in the back, then what was the point of her entire fake bullshit about Jon refusing to stay neutral ?

She's planning on betraying the truce herself, what's the point of pretending like she cares about permanent peace with Jon ? Why does she even ask for this permanent truce in the first place ? Why does she throw a fit about his refusal ? That entire maneuver on Cersei's part is pointless if she was planning on stabbing them in the back from the beginning.

And it's also potentially risky. As it happened, Tyrion came to talk to her, but for all Cersei knew, Dany could have very well said "Fine, if you refuse the truce then I'm taking the city right now".

And that's the other thing. Dany could just take the city, but doesn't because the writers want this truce. Cersei could just accept the truce immediately, and then reveal to Jaime and the audience that she's planning to betray them, but she doesn't because the writers want drama surrounding Jon's pledge and they want Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey to have an emotionally charged scene.

The whole thing is contrived, nothing is organic, the character motivations are forced, nonsensical, or nonexistent.

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And it's also potentially risky. As it happened, Tyrion came to talk to her, but for all Cersei knew, Dany could have very well said "Fine, if you refuse the truce then I'm taking the city right now".

except she knew that the whole purpose of this meeting was that they needed every fighting men they could have get, which she still had some and they too knew that there was an army of dead ready to march down while they are wasting enough time in south trying to convince cersei and if dany happened to try conquer the city right then, unless she goes full dracarys on everyone and everything in the city, she would need more time to adjust stuff for her own rule before heading back to north

and i believe it was discussed in other threads but there is a general cersei profile and it would be more suspicious if she directly agreed on joining them

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The whole thing is contrived, nothing is organic, the character motivations are forced, nonsensical, or nonexistent.

This sentence alone describes the entirety of the show after season four.

Astute observation about why Cersei would reject the truce that she was planning to betray. I think she was genuinely pissed to hear that Jon had already sided with Daenerys, and perhaps she thought if she didn't throw a fit that Tyrion and others would be suspicious. Also, if Daenerys takes the city with Fire and Blood then her subjects will fear her instead of loving her, and she desperately wants to be loved (not quite as desperately as her Hand Tyrion, but she wants it). She doesn't want to be a crazy ill tempered conqueror, even if that's exactly what she is. But that is just me making excuses for D&D. The writing is awful. I might enjoy it more if I heard it dubbed in a language I don't understand and then made assumptions about the dialogue while I watched.

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Cersei knows Jon is in an open rebellion. She like Dany expects him to bend the knee. But Cersei has no idea he'd already committed.

In S1, Cersei told Joffrey, you can't kill the Starks, all the northerns, invade their land and ecpect to rule successfully. You have to rule smart.

Cersei does not need a rebellion and needs aliances. Jon's answer throws in a major wrench. Cersei has an answer for the Dragons, for the invading fleets, for the Dothrakis the sellswords. She does not have the answer for the northerners.

We don't know what Tyrion agreed to, but his look at the closed door is almost as disapointing as Cersei's would be. Cersei stormed off. Jamie is off to the north. It's a big deal.

A large part of the new northern Army is the knights of Vale, under the leadership of LF.

Maybe that is why he was killed, because he could not be trusted to stay loyal, not to switch to Cersei's side for the iron throne, and the crucial battles are coming, it's martial law.

The Starks took the Vale army from him.

That's why I don't see how Jamie can or should survive in the north. The game is on. Even Tyrion is in a bad spot up north.

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So, if Cersei had already planned with Euron that he was going to pretend to retreat home, and she was going to pretend to accept the truce but then stab Dany and Jon in the back, then what was the point of her entire fake bullshit about Jon refusing to stay neutral ?

She's planning on betraying the truce herself, what's the point of pretending like she cares about permanent peace with Jon ? Why does she even ask for this permanent truce in the first place ? Why does she throw a fit about his refusal ? That entire maneuver on Cersei's part is pointless if she was planning on stabbing them in the back from the beginning.

And it's also potentially risky. As it happened, Tyrion came to talk to her, but for all Cersei knew, Dany could have very well said "Fine, if you refuse the truce then I'm taking the city right now".

And that's the other thing. Dany could just take the city, but doesn't because the writers want this truce. Cersei could just accept the truce immediately, and then reveal to Jaime and the audience that she's planning to betray them, but she doesn't because the writers want drama surrounding Jon's pledge and they want Peter Dinklage and Lena Headey to have an emotionally charged scene.

The whole thing is contrived, nothing is organic, the character motivations are forced, nonsensical, or nonexistent.

My theory is that Cersei needed an excuse to reject the original offer because she does not want to keep her troops in KL. The original request from Dany was for Cersei to pull her troops back to KL until after the war against the WW is over. If Cersei immediately says that she will help with the fight -- they will be suspicious. So she trumps up a reason to reject the offer and storm out -- knowing that Tyrion will chase after her. She then can pretend to be convinced by Tyrion and agree to take her troops north to help them. By originally appearing to be angry, Dany and Jon and Tyrion will be less suspicious of a betrayal.

If she had accepted the original offer, then when she did not pull her troops back to KL, Dany would know the betrayal immediately, But by seeming angry -- and then coming around and agreeing to send troops to help, she can send troops north and Dany will only realize that the troops are stopping way South of the battle and betraying Dany only after the fight against the WW is well under way. Thus Cersei can best position herself to beat Dany if she wins the War (and if Dany loses, I suspect Cersei has a back-up plan to high tail to Essos or some other island and get out of the line of the WW).

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It's the exact same tactic as admitting to a small crime to make your denial of a larger crime more believable.

If Cersei just said yes, nobody would trust her. She's Cersei, she can't possibly be that selfless, she must be planning something.

But by stubbornly insisting on getting something for herself out of the deal, even when the survival of humanity is on the line, she solved the problem. She's acting exactly like you'd expect of Cersei, so there's much less reason to be suspicious of it.

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She's planning on betraying the truce herself, what's the point of pretending like she cares about permanent peace with Jon ? Why does she even ask for this permanent truce in the first place ? Why does she throw a fit about his refusal ? That entire maneuver on Cersei's part is pointless if she was planning on stabbing them in the back from the beginning.

My take is her original plan was indeed to make it look like she was cooperating and in turn she would receive the "concession" from Jon to stay neutral. She expected such a concession because of exactly what she said - he's Ned Stark's son and cares much more about the battle up North that the Iron Throne in the south. Once she extracts this concession, it would have been convincing to Tyrion et al. that she has an interest in cooperating.

Then, Jon fucked that up and she stormed off because, well, her plan was thwarted and she's impulsive. So, she plays the pregnancy card when Tyrion comes for the tete-a-tete. Somewhat incidentally, I thought this was brilliant acting by Headey - she is able to at once play it as she's convincing Tyrion (and the viewer at the time) of her legitimate concern while also showing she's holding something back and leading Tyrion to the pregnancy conclusion.

13 minutes ago, falcotron said:

It's the exact same tactic as admitting to a small crime to make your denial of a larger crime more believable.

Exactly. It should be noted this is her MO throughout the Margaery drama in the books as well.

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I was thinking maybe she expected Jon to say yes, and thus throw a wrench into the works of the Dany-Jon alliance. Cersei knows the North wants independence and has every reason to believe he will say yes. If he does, he proves that he is not an ally to Dany in the long term. Since he said no, she went to Plan B: let herself be "convinced."

Honestly, I find every single thing about this plot contrived and agree with the OP that it was solely to get Lena Heady and Peter Dinklage in a room alone to deliver a great, but ultimately meaningless, scene.

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My theory is that Cersei needed an excuse to reject the original offer because she does not want to keep her troops in KL. The original request from Dany was for Cersei to pull her troops back to KL until after the war against the WW is over. If Cersei immediately says that she will help with the fight -- they will be suspicious. So she trumps up a reason to reject the offer and storm out -- knowing that Tyrion will chase after her. She then can pretend to be convinced by Tyrion and agree to take her troops north to help them. By originally appearing to be angry, Dany and Jon and Tyrion will be less suspicious of a betrayal.

If she had accepted the original offer, then when she did not pull her troops back to KL, Dany would know the betrayal immediately, But by seeming angry -- and then coming around and agreeing to send troops to help, she can send troops north and Dany will only realize that the troops are stopping way South of the battle and betraying Dany only after the fight against the WW is well under way. Thus Cersei can best position herself to beat Dany if she wins the War (and if Dany loses, I suspect Cersei has a back-up plan to high tail to Essos or some other island and get out of the line of the WW).

It's THEIR idea to have a truce with her. Not Cersei's. They're counting on her good will anyway, so even if they're suspicious of her they're still going with the truce.

As for the other bolded part, it takes time to pull back her troops. Dany isn't keeping track of the positions of the Lannister army all across Westeros, so how would she know it?

None of it makes any sense.

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The trouble with Cersei's plan is that she still seems to think her number of enemies will be reduced in number if the WW and the North go up against each other. I felt like no one made enough of an effort to emphasise that a dead enemy remains an enemy nowadays. There are four factions: the North, the WW, Daenerys and Cersei. She's gambling that the three other factions will weaken each other, rather than unite. If they do unite, they're stronger than the sum of their parts and she's worse off than ever. It's a big gamble.

On the other hand, other than just crossing her fingers and looking for a chance to betray her temporary allies, I don't think she'd have much hope if she took the truce, either. The trouble with the truce plan is it's just asking for backstabbing. They all know they'll be fighting again sooner or later, so it's in Cersei's interests to hold back forces and supplies, drag her feet, do anything she can to have the best advantage she can after the War for the Dawn.

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The trouble with Cersei's plan is that she still seems to think her number of enemies will be reduced in number if the WW and the North go up against each other. I felt like no one made enough of an effort to emphasise that a dead enemy remains an enemy nowadays.

But if Dany and Jon defeat the Night King, then her number of enemies does go down.

And if Dany and Jon can't defeat the Night King, well, then Dany and Jon and Cersei probably couldn't either, so, no worse off, and at least she gets a few extra weeks to plan her escape from Westeros.

Think about it: Every soldier who actually knows how to fight in northern terrain (including the Wildlings), plus the Unsullied and 100,000 Dothraki, and 2 dragons (way more total soldiers than you can possibly fit into Winterfell)—if they all lose, do you think another few thousand southron soldiers, Jaime's generalship, and a bunch of sailors, or even the Golden Company, would have made a difference? If Cersei had some kind of secret weapon to contribute or something… but she doesn't.* Dany was willing to accept a truce rather than joining forces, because she knows the answer to that question.

---

* And even if she did, if you've got a Qyburn 5000 Wight Side-Switcher Ray, what do you need Dany's army for? Just take the solo victory after she's dead and there's 150,000 more wights to switch. But anyway, she doesn't have anything like that, which is why this is in a footnote.

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I don't really think Cersei ever intended to really betray the truce (edit: She clearly intends to break the truce, by taking advantage of the fact that Dany and Co. aren't around, which is the entire point of the truce. So, not sure what I was trying to say, really.). The meeting was never really a matter of getting Cersei to send her men North, they were trying to get her to not take advantage of the fact that they were all but abandoning the field to fight a different war; if they can get her support, great, but they wanted a truce, not an alliance.

The trickery on Cersei's part is that she fooled Daenerys into thinking that Cersei's team in down a major portion of their forces (and pretty much their entire fleet, also), when in truth the Ironborn are still with them, and they'll also have the Golden Company. The war between Cersei and Dany is still coming, which both sides know, but now Daenerys thinks that Cersei will be significantly weakened, when in reality she's been significantly strengthened.

Which would've been even better for Cersei if she could have Jon swear an oath to stay out of the fight; Daenerys would've lost an ally as well (and would therefore have been more willing to let Jon go, with Cersei's loss of the Greyjoy fleet in mind), but would still think herself in a superior position, when in reality she wouldn't be, especially if she lost another of her Dragons, which Cersei correctly believes is a real possibility.

She also refused the truce after Jon's proclamation of his oath to Daenerys, because she still held all of the cards, and she knew they'd have to beg; they want the truce more than Cersei wants the truce, which is proven by the fact that they're even there in the first place. The truce serves Dany's interests, not Cersei's. Which leads me to think that Cersei got something out of that discussion with Tyrion (though, it could simply be that she thinks her trickery is worthwhile, which I'm not sure I'm seeing. They'll figure out that her men aren't coming quickly enough, so what's the point in saying they'll come? It won't fool anyone for too long. But, that's another topic, I suppose).

I do believe the trickery with sending the men North was contrived, but it was in order to get Jaime away from Cersei, nothing else.

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Cersei is being cunning. If Jon refuses to agree to be neutral, he looks unreasonable, and she can walk away from the negotiations. If he agrees to neutrality, she can still walk away from the deal when it suits her.

Rather than breaking the truce at this point, however, it would be better for her to send token Lannister forces North, and prevaricate, while waiting for the Golden Company to disembark at Kings Landing.

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But if Dany and Jon defeat the Night King, then her number of enemies does go down.

That's why the rest of the paragraph is there. As I said, she's gambling.

2 hours ago, falcotron said:

And if Dany and Jon can't defeat the Night King, well, then Dany and Jon and Cersei probably couldn't either, so, no worse off, and at least she gets a few extra weeks to plan her escape from Westeros.

Think about it: Every soldier who actually knows how to fight in northern terrain (including the Wildlings), plus the Unsullied and 100,000 Dothraki, and 2 dragons (way more total soldiers than you can possibly fit into Winterfell)—if they all lose, do you think another few thousand southron soldiers, Jaime's generalship, and a bunch of sailors, or even the Golden Company, would have made a difference? If Cersei had some kind of secret weapon to contribute or something… but she doesn't.* Dany was willing to accept a truce rather than joining forces, because she knows the answer to that question.

---

* And even if she did, if you've got a Qyburn 5000 Wight Side-Switcher Ray, what do you need Dany's army for? Just take the solo victory after she's dead and there's 150,000 more wights to switch. But anyway, she doesn't have anything like that, which is why this is in a footnote.

That doesn't make sense to me. Cersei would be able to vastly increase the size of the available forces. I don't know how many people Daenerys is supposed to have with her, but it's hard to believe the non-Northern parts of Westeros can't come up with more people as she can fit on her ships, or at least as many as the North can supply after one failed rebellion and a mini Northern civil war.

As for any objections about Westerosi levies not comparing to Unsullied and the issue with Northern terrain, this might have gone out the window in the last 5 minutes of the episode, but the non-stupid thing to do would be to put everyone on the Wall. They don't need skilled soldiers, they need numbers. People to mass produce dragonglass arrows and incendiary weapons. They need the pyromancers and their wildfire. And they need people to use these weapons, not just trained soldiers, but anyone who can shoot an arrow into a mass of dead people or throw a pot of burning pitch. Anyone who can pick up a stick and knock the wights off the wall once they reach the top. They could collect Valyrian steel weapons and melt them down to give a huge increase to their anti-WW abilities, so they need all the good smiths and armourers. Maybe it's enough to just coat a sword in Valyrian steel. They need the maesters of the Citadel to all go on a marathon reading session. They need the fertile southern lands to send food and people to transport it. Perhaps on those ships. And speaking of which, having dabbled in all sorts of things, Euron might know a thing or two about some of this, or know someone who does. Instead of sending him to Essos for the Golden Company, what about having him ask around to see if any red priests, warlocks or whoever else have any useful insights? Honestly, if I were Jon I'd consider it a huge success if the south didn't supply a single fighting man but agreed to provide all the other help I mentioned.

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Think about it: Every soldier who actually knows how to fight in northern terrain (including the Wildlings), plus the Unsullied and 100,000 Dothraki, and 2 dragons (way more total soldiers than you can possibly fit into Winterfell)—if they all lose, do you think another few thousand southron soldiers, Jaime's generalship, and a bunch of sailors, or even the Golden Company, would have made a difference? If Cersei had some kind of secret weapon to contribute or something… but she doesn't.* Dany was willing to accept a truce rather than joining forces, because she knows the answer to that question.

True, but what you just wrote is a good reason for Dany to attack KL, as I explain below.

13 hours ago, Jasemina said:

except she knew that the whole purpose of this meeting was that they needed every fighting men they could have get

let's talk about this argument for a while, in particular from the perspective of the wight's capture plan.

It has been clearly established in the show that:

1) the conquest of KL would be quiet easy (even Jaime said that)

2) The Lannister have a small army left

So why should they be so interested in having the armistice? Why couldn't they just take KL, losing few men but at the same time gaining resources for moving north?

Also, the time issue is not convincing: in the time they wasted capturing the wight and moving with the whole army to the meeting they could have taken KL seven times [especially if we think that all battles until now were resolved very fast in the show].

And without the dragon nobody knows how much time would have been needed for the others to attack and take the wall.

A part from that, as far as Jon knew from his experience in Hardhome, the wights did not have long range weapons and were susceptible to fire. Why shouldn't he think that even a single dragon would be enough to defend the wall? He had no idea that the NK had magical spears. So why was he so concerned about having at his disposal all possible men?

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It's THEIR idea to have a truce with her. Not Cersei's. They're counting on her good will anyway, so even if they're suspicious of her they're still going with the truce.

As for the other bolded part, it takes time to pull back her troops. Dany isn't keeping track of the positions of the Lannister army all across Westeros, so how would she know it?

None of it makes any sense.

I think I made it clear that I understand that it is "their" idea for the truce. They are not counting on Cersei's good will -- they know she has none -- they are counting on Cersei having a sense of self preservation and seeing that a truce is her best option because it allows Dany to focus solely on the WW invasion without needed to take out Cersei first.

I think that our key disagreement is in your second paragraph where you indicate that if she does not pull back, Dany won't know. I simply disagree. The process of pulling back certainly takes time but the process can be initiated fairly quickly. Dany has dragons and can survey troop movements fairly easily. Cersei does not want to risk Dany invading KL, and agreeing to pull back to KL and then not doing so has a meaningful risk of being detected too soon and being retaliated against by Dany. But convincing Dany that Cersei is going to assist in the WW fight makes Dany unlikely to detect the betrayal until much later in time when Dany is less likely to have the luxury of invading KL. Cersei bought herself an excuse to keep her troops not only where they are -- but start to move them further north into territories Cersei has not yet taken under her control. Dany will be able to detect that they are not actually joining the fight much later than Dany would have been able to detect failure to start the pull back to KL.

Basically, either one believes it is plausible that Cersei would be worried that Dany would detect the betrayal too soon if the agreement was to pull back immediately to KL or not. I think it is quite plausible that Cersei would have this concern. You don't -- so be it -- I guess we disagree. But for my theory to work, I don't need to prove that failure to pull back definitely would not have been detected in time -- I only need to establish that Cersei might believe that she was at greater risk because the failure to pull back would be detected too soon. For you to be correct that "None of it makes any sense" -- you need to establish that Cersei could not have had any rationale concern that failure to pull back would be detected too soon and risk an invasion of KL by Dany (keeping in mind that Cersei already understands that all that keeps Dany from taking KL is Dany's desire not to kill thousands of innocent people and not the time or effort it would take, as Jaime has already explained to Cersei and she clearly acknowledged understanding of this point). I don't think that you can establish that proposition -- so I don't think that you are correct that "None of it makes any sense."

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I think I made it clear that I understand that it is "their" idea for the truce

Rather than Cersei's, what I find more difficult to understand is Daenerys' strategy.

I guess we all agree on the fact that, sooner or later, in a way or another, she is determined to take KL.
So why didn't she think about it before going north? I know it could be complicated if she doesn't want to kill too many people, but since she's not even remotely in the mood for throwing the towel, why didn't she started finding a good plan while the Others were beyond the Wall?

I don't buy the timing explanation, since capturing the wight has been the most time consuming thing they could possibly do.

Also, she had three dragons, why didn't she use them efficiently from the beginning? They're super fast: they can go from Dragonstone to the Wall in few hours, so why didn't she send one of them to follow Yara's fleet? We have already seen scenes where they were able to attack in an autonomous way, so her presence was not needed.

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Rather than Cersei's, what I find more difficult to understand is Daenerys' strategy.

I guess we all agree on the fact that, sooner or later, in a way or another, she is determined to take KL.
So why didn't she think about it before going north? I know it could be complicated if she doesn't want to kill too many people, but since she's not even remotely in the mood for throwing the towel, why didn't she started finding a good plan while the Others were beyond the Wall?

I don't buy the timing explanation, since capturing the wight has been the most time consuming thing they could possibly do.

Also, she had three dragons, why didn't she use them efficiently from the beginning? They're super fast: they can go from Dragonstone to the Wall in few hours, so why didn't she send one of them to follow Yara's fleet? We have already seen scenes where they were able to attack in an autonomous way, so her presence was not needed.

So D&D clearly have a dilemma. They need Dany to be as strong as she is -- well because that is what makes Dany Dany in this situation. So Dany having overwhelming force to take out KL at whim is understood by everyone -- including Jaime and Cersei. BUT -- beating Cersei as easily as seems to be clearly what could be done does not serve the plot. Cersei needs to be a rival both because she is a great character (being performed by their best actor) and because Dany needs to have an opposing force to create dramatic conflict.

So the viewers need to give D&D a break. The logic is going to be a bit strained, but the plot demands some excuse for Dany not being able to take KL. So they invent the excuse that Dany does not want to be a "ruler of ashes" and thus will not take out KL.

But there is an obvious solution to this problem -- warn the average citizens. Get the word out to evacuate the city because the invasion is coming. Maybe that gives Cersei the time to evacuate as well, but so what? Take over the empty city and then invite the citizens back in. Take that action in every territory where Cersei has taken over. I think that Dany would have all of Westeros in short order.

BUT -- that would suck for the plot and for the action that viewers want to see. So they trumped up an excuse for why Dany does not take over KL -- and the excuse is not totally crazy -- Dany does not want to kill thousands of innocent peasants and maybe no one thought of the obvious alternative. So as viewers we just have to go with it because the course of action you are suggesting would give us a crappy show.

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Perhaps the show should have spent a little more time construction the plot and the dialogue. I understand that w/out Aegon, they are going to have a challenge in keeping Cersei in power, however, I refuse to believe that what we saw in this season is the best that could be had.

Me, personally, I am bored with Lena's acting, it has become pretty one note, she shows no emotion, all of her line readings come out the same, and it has been the show's decision to make her such a huge element, so huge that she apparently can't ever be killed until the very end. If they had organized things a little differently, given more space to some of the other characters and secondary plots then she might have been killed this season.

But, even if not, the various implausible mechanisms they have used to slow down Dany have been poorly constructed....the idea that everyone is totally obsessed with getting Cersei's non existent Lannister army that we already saw can be burned to a crisp in 5 minutes is just fucking stupid. At least they could have had Dany be the one giving her a lecture.....instead of letting Cersei lord it over everyone as if she is the one who has the real power, which is BS, even by what the show has shown us.